The Magical Gunner of Grimhild Academy

Nick waited for a count of three before he pointed at the lead goblin. He didn’t see

any bows, but that didn’t mean anything. They might have dropped them as they

charged at him from down the hall. He lined up his arm and let his magic fly.

He killed the first two goblins running at him with four, or five, of his spell charges.

He needed more energy. He shot at the last one before it could reach him. It went

down on its face and skidded to a stop at the other side of the armor the misfit was

using as a shield.

The last charge went into the back of that goblin’s head.

A pile of energy popped out of the goblin’s back. A small pile had erupted from the

other two dead targets out of the magician’s reach. He had to arm up with what they

had given him. There were four more downed, but still ready to heal up and come at

him down where he had first seen them, and a trio heading the other direction.

He had done nothing to the trio yet. He had to finish up what he was doing and chase

them down, and then get back to his quarters.

He pulled the loot from the first goblin as he advanced. The magic exchanged his

thunder cracker for a longer bow, and ball spitter. He had some special skin that he

could use as armor. And the last two things were area effect attacks.

The first goblin didn’t give him charges.

He found charges on the other two goblins and a bird. He took those and left the

spells. He didn’t need them now that he had the more powerful spells loaded in his

hands.

He advanced as the rest of the enemy tried to pick themselves up to defend

themselves from him. He took one of the area of effect spells from its place in his

mind. He threw it in the middle of the crowd. It hit and stuck to the floor. A blinding

explosion gave him another pile of loot amidst torn and burned bodies.

The trio was moving faster now after the roll of thunder Nick had produced in the

hall.

Nick found some equipment spells in the pile and applied those to his body. He was

a little bit faster, and little bit stronger, and could detect people looking at him. He

didn’t see anything else that would help boost his speed.

“You killed all of them,” said Crow. She looked amazed. “You’re a monster hunter.”

“Can you get back to our quarters on your own?,” asked Nick. “I don’t mind getting

kicked out, but I don’t know what they would do to you if they found you here.”

“What are you going to do?,” asked Crow. She studied the scene as she tried to avoid

the green blood and fragments of body parts and stone.

“There are three of them left, moving away from us,” said Nick. “I can’t let them run

loose. Go back to our quarters and wait for me. We’ll talk then.”

“All right,” said Crow. “I don’t like it, but I will go.”

“As long as you are in my sphere of influence, I can see your pointer,” said Nick. “If

you get into trouble, try to mark the target like you did with the goblins.”

“I understand,” said Crow. “Be careful.”

“They’ll never see me coming,” said Nick. He rushed down the hall. His equipment

made him faster, but was he faster than a troupe of goblins with a headstart?

He ran until he was about where the pings were in his sphere of influence. He didn’t

see them. Had they turned around? Were they going home since the rest of their

troupe had been loudly murdered in the sleeping school? He needed to find them, and

luckily he had the spell to do it for the duration of his search.

He grabbed the bird spell from his reserve. He flung it upwards and waited. His

sphere lit up with pings. Most were in the same areas, but three of them were moving.

He realized they were above him somewhere. He had to catch up before the bird wore

off.

He saw some stairs to his right, and ran to them. He started up, listening. The special

hearing that Crow had relayed from her Them, lit up as he neared his targets. He

didn’t pause as he heard one of them say that someone was coming down the hall at

them. He had to wrap this up and get out of the main keep before the teachers wanted

to know what happened.

He wasn’t giving them any reason to keep him if he could help it.

The goblins hid in the hall. He could tell because their pings stopped moving. He

readied the ball spitter as he advanced. The bird died, and he didn’t have a picture of

where the monsters were any more.

What did he do?

His one area of effect spell could potentially stun anyone in its net for a certain

amount of time. That would give him some kind of warning if he hit. If he threw it

and missed, it would just light up the hall in a flash and he would be blinded and none

the wiser.

He didn’t anything to lose, and he could hear other voices in the mental space as

teachers and staff woke up and wondered what the problem could be.

He readied the stunner and tossed it down the hall. It exploded in a hexagram of light,

reaching around it with flailing tentacles. One of the goblins was caught in its

embrace, lighting up in his sphere of influence. That was enough for the magician to

close and dump half of the charges in his spell into the body of the green hunter.

The other two lit up again on Nick’s sphere. They were still moving toward whatever

goal they had. He switched spells and took aim. He emptied the whole reserve of

magical energy down the hall, hoping to hit one before they took cover.

“I’m hurt,” said the one goblin. “Got a hole in my leg.”

“I will go on without you,” said the other goblin. “The master will punish me if I

don’t.”

“Don’t leave me,” said the first goblin.

Nick switched spells at the ready and reloaded the ball spitter. He decided not to pick

up any of the loot around him as he moved forward. There was nothing there that he

could use indoors, or for an advantage. If they were outside, he might have picked up

the lightning strike and used that to send his target flying through the air.

He readied the spell as he advanced. He saw the two goblins. The wounded one had

a grip on the other’s ankle. They both looked at him in surprise when they noticed

him in the hall. He unleashed clouds of stone rocks into both of them until the spell

ran out of power.

He had to get out of the hall and back to his quarters before he was found. He didn’t

need better hearing, or a bird, to know he would be surrounded if he stayed where he

was.

He ran back the way he came. There was nothing in his spells or equipment, that

would help him move faster. There were certain spells he could loot to help his speed,

and the reflex from his equipment, that would turn him into a blur of motion.

He ran down the stairs and toward the market. He realized he could buy what he

needed from there if he hurried. He had the spirit money after the killing he had done,

and it would be gone as soon as he started a new day. He could get what he wanted

and escape back to his quarters easily.

He marked the market again on his map. His pointer headed right for it in his mind.

Crow’s marker was at the edge of his awareness, outside of the keep. She was clear

unless a teacher saw her on the grounds.

Her white hair stood out at night like a flag saying here I am.

Nick reached the market. Voices were all around him, wondering what was going on.

He needed to cut off the hearing until he was out of there. It was driving him a little

crazy. He put his hand on the wall and slipped through to the selling room.

He quickly checked the board. It would give him the increased speed. He bought it

and put it in his reserve. He decided to buy a bird and a rope. He wanted to cut off the

hearing, but he didn’t know how much time had already passed. He needed to move

if he wanted to avoid any entanglements.

He left the market and threw the bird up immediately. There was a large group of

pings coming down the hall toward him. It looked like he had woke up the whole

castle. He had to get away as fast as possible.

He pulled the diamond from his reserve and swallowed it. He felt energy and power

rush through his body. He headed for the door as fast as he could. He had no idea if

he had been seen, and he didn’t want to find out. He hit the door and ran out into the

courtyard.

The bird went away as he threw the end of the rope into the ground. He threw the

other end upwards to an invisible anchor in the sky. He grabbed it and was instantly

thrown into the air, above the wall. He spotted the misfits’ dorm. He activated his

glide spell and steered toward it. He let go of the glide so he could fall before anyone

sent out something that could spot him falling from the air. He activated the glide

again to sail toward the upper floor windows.

He realized that he didn’t know which window was his. He deactivated glide so he

could drop straight down with a thump. He reached for the door, but it opened for

him. Crow grabbed his arm and pulled him in.

“We have to get to our rooms before the faculty check on us,” said Crow. “We have

to hurry if we want to pretend we were in our quarters all night.”

“There’s no way I can do that,” said Nick. He walked toward the stairs leading to his

room. “I need to go to sleep. That will erase the spells I have now, and give me back

the thunder cracker. And let’s face it, I’m covered with blood splatter and dead goblin

smell. I need a bath and I need to get rid of these clothes. You can hide your

involvement pretty easily, and I won’t mention you were there.”

“I don’t think I can lie,” said Crow. “They wouldn’t like it. If I lie once, why wouldn’t

I lie all the time? I can try to dodge the question, but I can’t lie about it.”

“I got it,” said Nick. “Let me get cleaned up, and then I need to take a nap.”

“Thank you for trusting me,” said Crow.

“We’re in this together whether we like it, or not,” said Nick. “Let me do what I can

about things before the teachers come to check to see if we’re still alive.”

“I will try to stall,” said Crow.

“All right,” said Nick. He jogged up to his room and slid inside. He stripped his

clothes and soaked a clean shirt in the water basin they gave him to clean up in the

morning. He quickly cleaned up as much as he could.

He still stank. It was just fainter than it had been before he had fled the castle. He

needed something to cut it down to being unnoticeable, but he didn’t have anything

in his bag to do that.

A knock sounded on his door. He saw that it was Crow with his sphere of influence.

She stood outside his door from her marker. He pulled on a clean pair of pants and

opened the door a crack.

“Rub this in,” said Crow. She handed him berries on a twig. “Then wash it off as fast

as you can. Give me your dirty clothes. I will hide them.”

He gave her the pile of stinky clothes. She headed back to her room across the hall.

He crushed the berries against his skin and rubbed the juice in as fast as he could. He

took the shirt and cleaned off the juice. He threw the water in the basin out the

window.

He looked around the room and wondered how long did he have before Granny Bitter

showed up to ask him some pointed questions. At least nobody knew he had access

to different but similar types of missile spells. That might be the one good thing about

this.

He would have to visit the market again to turn down the sound. It had been helpful

when facing the goblins, but the various teachers and students in his range had given

him a headache with all their questions.

At least Crow was safe after what he had done.

He fell on his bed and wondered how long did he have before someone visited their

quarters. He also wondered why Crow had berries that removed goblin stink in her

bag. He started wondering about what her speciality was, and knew whatever it was,

it was unique like his.

He could see her moving around in her room with her pointer. She probably saw him

laying down on his bed from her point of view.

A ping of magic approached their quarters. That had to be Granny Bitter. He noticed

another ping in the keep. He supposed they were cleaning up the bodies and the

damage he had done.

All he had to do now was resist telling the teacher what she wanted to know by

pretending ignorance. He hoped Crow could avoid answering any questions if she had

to tell the truth as a restriction on her ability.

He definitely was not letting the old bat know he could share his sphere of influence

with people. They would want to know how he was doing anything like that.

No one else had ever been able to do anything like that as far as he knew. It would

make him a prize testing project. He would never get out of the school if that

happened.

He should think about getting a rope and going over the wall as soon as possible.

He heard the door open downstairs. He felt something brush over him and figured it

was the old lady checking to see if he was there. He waited to see what happened

next.